2016 has been a rough year for citizen activism. While it has been up and down here in Sioux Falls with many successes and failures to boot, it seems Washington DC has gone into full collapse as we allowed racist, sexist, hillbillies to elect our president.

• Governor Daugaard claiming that voters were ‘hoodwinked’ into voting for IM 22, then getting the Pierre (in)justice system to go along with it. Funny how for over 40 years voters have been voting his party into power, and no word about ‘hoodwinking’ but once that corrupt power will be challenged, all the voters are idiots. As one official told me that used to work for Dennis, it’s not the public that are idiots, it’s Dennis. And his idiocy has been shining through.

• The South Dakota Democratic Party’s bottom completely fell out, and the people in charge patted themselves on the back. Insanity I tell you! Insanity!

• But one of the greatest achievements of the year is the Sioux Falls City Council’s change of power. The four new councilors have been flexing their muscles with a little help from Councilor Erickson, and while they have had a few missteps to start out, they have been learning from the battle scars. While ‘leadership’ of the council (Rolfing and Kiley) seem to be on a two man mission to rubberstamp all things Huether, shut down public input, and concoct false ethics charges against a fellow councilor (until they got caught lying like the snakes they are) they are becoming more and more in check. The city council has many big plans for 2017, and I have a feeling their agenda will push through easily as our lame duck mayor melts.

Let’s take a look at some the finer high and low points of 2016;

• The Huether Tennis center continues to block parking from other event attendees at the Sanford Sports complex though they basically stole $500K from taxpayers for the facility. Throughout the year there was several reports on cones and signs blocking the lot with not cars in it. But hey Mike’s Bride won an award this year and seemed surprised she did, without commenting that her check to the organization that gave the award wasn’t returned.

• The Sioux Falls City Council leadership and mayor’s HR department pulled a military retiree out of their asses for city clerk, a person who will be in charge of our city elections and hasn’t been registered to vote for years. He also proved his knowledge of official stamps when he stamped a petition without even bothering to read it. While Mr. Greco has gotten better over the year, the city clerk position should not be a $80K+ a year job as an apprentice, sadly being trained by one of his assistant clerks who has ten times the qualifications and applied for the position but was turned down. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the council chair’s view of women in the work place.

• Speaking of letting the mayor’s HR department and Leadership’s Mutt and Jeff pick the next internal auditor, the council barked loud enough that they did not want another ‘Greco’ pick. Not sure if the barking worked, but the person who was set to take the job saw the writing on the wall and turned it down. Hopefully the person who ultimately gets the position won’t be turned down because they shave their legs.

• The city continues to blow money on the Winter Wonderland Display, but the way the mayor has been cutting budgets these days, I expect next year’s display to be a couple of homeless barrel fire pits, sponsored by the Dudley House of course.

• After posting about the ridiculous corporate like raises the mayor has been giving to his management team, he turns around and still screws the minions with dismal raises again this year. I think in a special note to the city employees on their Christmas paystub he wrote, “I don’t care.”

• The city continues the FREE condom distribution program at area bars, and for some reason Monk’s is always emptied the quickest. Coincidence that is also a favorite watering hole of city managers . . .

• The Erp wrongfully calls out local massage therapists as prejudice because they pointed out the ‘shower massages’ that were taking place around town. Apparently someone got a bad fortune cookie that day.

• The car rental tax and BID tax grabby-grabby fails in Sioux Falls, but the state legislature passes one of the most idiotic tax increases ever so our teachers are now just tied for last instead of dead last in pay. Out hoodwinking governor already has plans to rob the pot only one year after its passage.

• Hartford’s city government was in a state of collapse. Who really cares?

• The Levitt Pavilion is moving forward in Sioux Falls. It will be nice watching outdoor concerts sitting in the grass while battery acid is boiling beneath our asses.

• The Boulevard ordinance changes went into effect. Now stop worrying about rocks and plant a garden.

• The Washington Pavilion got a change of leadership after Darrin Smith takes over as President. So far he has only eliminated one director, but I hear the blood-letting has just begun. Now let’s throw another couple of million at the place to fix the poor construction to begin with. That will never happen with the Events Center . . .

• The Events Center cracks down on outside snacks and guns at events. We are all now safe from cheap fat people shooting us, but not in the parking lot.

• The Pottie Room war starts in Pierre and is guaranteed to return in 2017.

• A city council candidate throws a hissy fit over a post I wrote about his wife’s involvement with the Jesus plows and after threats to my employer I pull the post. He ends up taking last place in the at-large race. How’s Jesus working out for you now?

• Due to health reasons, Kermit Staggers decides not to run for a 4th term on the city council. His endorsement of Stehly puts her over the top.

• One of the youngest candidates in city history runs for city council. I apologize to Briggs for all the shitty things I said about him during the campaign.

• The Argus Leader sues the city for the details in the secret events center siding settlement. The Argus loses the first round but it is headed to the SD Supreme Court.

• On a similar note, the SON neighborhood is also awaiting a judgement in their Walmart suit with the SD Supreme Court.

• The Mayor and Q-Tip Smith screwup the DT parking ramp development by flapping their traps to soon, and the council later on in the year returns the favor and defunds the ramp all together for 2017. I still think the fiasco is what got Smith to seek refuge at the Pavilion.

• City officials throw a hissy-fit over Bruce’s camera at a city meeting we were invited to by then city councilor Kenny Anderson. Looking back on it now, I just chuckle.

• Bruce and I do a presentation on voter turnout in Sioux Falls at Democratic Forum and one of the mayor’s buddy developers in Sioux Falls tries to shut us down. When he fails, he walks out. Another casualty to transparency.

I wondered what the John Thune press release news station would do for coverage of the President, so I toggled back and forth between them and KSFY while watching live yesterday. I will admit KSFY did a better job, even though it got tiresome hearing Brian Allen say ‘awesome’ & ‘amazing’ every time he saw a presidential seal and grumpy-grouchy Nancy continually interrupting so she could tell us about the color of the carpet at the White House. But at least they praised the presidential visit, instead of turning it into a pouty-pants party for Noem-Rounds-Thune.

When I heard the above Stormland reporter say ‘Democrat’ party in his report and it being on closed caption, I just shook my head. This is what it has come to in the MSM in South Dakota, partisanship, awesomeness and whole lot of caring.

Probably one of the better ones I have heard in a long time. I watched the WH version and it had dual screens with statistics. As this evaluation of the facts point out, the President did exaggerate a bit, but he also has turned around the country economically in 6 years after 8 years of the worst American president ever;

Private Sector Job Growth

The president was correct when he said the U.S. has gained 11 million private sector jobs in the past five years.

Obama: And over the past five years, our businesses have created more than 11 million new jobs.

Of course, the president said nothing of the 4,210,000 private sector jobs that were lost during the first 13 months of his tenure as president, due to the savage recession that was raging at the time he took office.

I find it interesting that the Ethics Commission would find it Unethical for councilors Erickson and Staggers to be committee members for the Minnehaha County Republican Party, but say nothing about Huether being a delegate for Obama.

Like I have said, I find NO conflicts with either. Huether serving as a delegate for the Democratic party for Obama has NOTHING to do with him acting as our mayor, just like the committee positions for the Republican party have nothing to do with the city council.

If Huether wants to assist his party, as do Erickson and Staggers, that is fine, and I find no conflicts. But there is a conflict. Why are councilors being treated differently when reviewing ethical behavior? I think someone needs to ask an opinion about Huether being a delegate, just as the councilors were. All is fair in Love and War.

As for Karsky, he really needs to resign from either the Chamber Board or the City Council. The Chamber works too closely with the council, it is way to close for comfort and an obvious conflict of interest.

The American Legislative Exchange Council is pushing new legislation to prevent insurance companies from accepting subsidies under the healthcare law. In public, the new legislation is being called the “Healthcare Freedom Act,” but behind closed doors it’s known as the “Obamacare Kill Bill.” The law would suspend the licenses of health insurers who accept Obamacare subsidies, making it virtually impossible to insure those who can’t afford new plans.

If one of these laws were to actually go into effect, it would force insurance companies to try and collect premiums from patients, or lead them to stop doing business in the states in which it was enacted. Already, the measure has been introduced in Ohio and Missouri, despite the fact that it would be preempted by federal law. States do regulate their own insurance licenses, but the law is an obvious conflict to the federal Affordable Care Act.

Even after more than 40 attempts to repeal Obamacare, a government shutdown, and Ted Cruz’s make-believe filibuster, Republicans don’t seem to get the point that the healthcare law is here to stay. This new legislation is just another pathetic attempt to dismantle the law, at the expense of millions of Americans who need health insurance. ALEC’s legislation doesn’t represent “healthcare freedom,” it represents partisan lawmakers and corporate interests who will do anything to undermine our president.

As the independent candidate for governor, Mike Myers said during his speech at Democratic Forum (in between yoga and pushups) “Hospitals should be spending their revenue on patient care, not on basketball stadiums.”(sic) to which he received an applause.

As Kelby Krabbenhoft drove toward the outskirts of Sioux Falls in his pickup Thursday evening, he had plenty on his mind.

The Sanford Health chief executive officer was headed for the Pentagon, a five-sided, $19 million basketball wonderland featuring an old-fashioned Heritage Court that seats 3,250 and harkens back to “Hoosiers” with its throwback décor.

Long before the facility became reality and drew national attention by hosting an NBA preseason game — as it did Thursday night — it was a vision that struck Krabbenhoft while he watched his son, Joe, play summer basketball.

“It was a ‘Field of Dreams’ kind of thing,” said the 55-year-old health care CEO, sitting in his luxury suite above the court as the Minnesota Timberwolves went through warmups.

“When Joe was playing AAU ball, you’d go into these stale gymnasiums and get the feeling that if you ever had a chance to do something special, you would do it right. How great would it be to go back in time and try to capture the history of the game?”

Something special? Participating in wrestling tournaments throughout ‘stale gyms’ in this state, I never once thought it hampered the experience. In fact, there was a bit of charm to many of the school gyms across the state, I still laugh about the time we hit the showers in Lake Andes after a bout and the water shot from the wall instead of the shower head. But this should come as no surprise from a man who just went bear hunting (a trip paid for by sick people). And watches a game from a ‘luxury suite’.

Of course Kelby justifies it all;

“When we recruit high-end physicians, they always ask if they can see the children’s hospital and the sports complex,” he said. “It benefits us and everybody when we can boost the community like that.

So this is what we are building this town for? High end physicians? What about the nurses and techs that work at your facility? What about the working poor and middle class of this town? We now can justify using money from sick people who can barely afford medical care and use it for basketball stadiums so your physicians can be entertained? Forget calling this place Sanford Falls, I liken it to Rome.

“At Sanford, it’s the law of big numbers, and it’s hard for people to wrap their minds around that. But we spend one-third of 1 percent of our budget on community dividends, which means that 99.7 percent is spent on health care.”

What he doesn’t tell you is that .03% is millions of dollars that could be spent on patient care. Which brings me to the government shutdown. Whether you are for or against Obamacare, doesn’t really matter. The whole purpose of the ACA was to address the healthcare industry and the way they treat patients (like dirt). Isn’t it the epitome of Sanford to be building a basketball stadium while the Feds are screaming THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY IS SCREWING US OVER!

Oh the hypocrisy and irony of it all. And the crying babies in both parties whose only solution to reforming ACA (and it needs some reform) is to shut down the entire government instead actually just debating and reforming the actual law.

And while we have thousands of dead cattle and sheep in the West, we play basketball in the East and you can hear a faint murmur from Kristi Noem in some Mitchell, SD hair salon.

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